Doug McMasters: Take our Bible and go over to Matthew chapter 26.
Doug McMasters: For those of you that are just visiting with us or just shortly with us, we're going through the Gospel of Matthew and we're reaching the end.
Doug McMasters: We started this in January two years ago.
Doug McMasters: We'll be going through the Gospel of Matthew, probably through September.
Doug McMasters: Passage that we're going to be looking at today begins in verse 47.
Doug McMasters: Verse 47.
Doug McMasters: Let me read this to as we go through it together.
Doug McMasters: While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, suddenly arrived.
Doug McMasters: A large mob with swords and clubs was with him, from the chief priest and elders of the people.
Doug McMasters: His betrayer had given them a sign.
Doug McMasters: The one I kiss, he's the one.
Doug McMasters: Arrest him.
Doug McMasters: So immediately he went up to Jesus and said, Greetings, rabbi, and kissed him.
Doug McMasters: Friend, Jesus asked him, Why have you come?
Doug McMasters: Then they came up, took hold of Jesus, and arrested him.
Doug McMasters: At that moment one of those who with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword.
Doug McMasters: He struck the high priest's servant and cut off his ear.
Doug McMasters: Then Jesus told him, Put your sword back into its place, because all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword.
Doug McMasters: Or do you think that I cannot call on my father, and he will provide me here and now with more than twelve legions of angels?
Doug McMasters: How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?
Doug McMasters: At that time Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a criminal to capture me?
Doug McMasters: Every day I used to sit teaching in the temple, and you didn't arrest me.
Doug McMasters: But all this happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away.
Doug McMasters: Think with me for just a moment as to why this is peculiar.
Doug McMasters: Kings.
Doug McMasters: Kings are not supposed to surrender.
Doug McMasters: Kings are not supposed to surrender through their enemy without a fight.
Doug McMasters: Yeah, sure, kings might retreat, they might be outnumbered, they might be outmatched by their foes, but eventually they return to the battlefield, rallying their troops, bringing in their reinforcements.
Doug McMasters: They might lose the war.
Doug McMasters: They might lead their army into certain death, but they don't just give themselves up, at least not without exacting some toll on their opponents.
Doug McMasters: And if a king was to lose his kingdom in battle, at least he'd die trying to save it.
Doug McMasters: Better to die fighting as a king than to just turn your nation over and become a slave.
Doug McMasters: This king, Jesus, rather than retreating from his opponents, goes out to greet them.
Doug McMasters: This king, rather than rallying his supporters, assumes that they're going to desert him.
Doug McMasters: This king, rather than have his faithful men fight, and he stands back in the castle waiting, wondering for news to see if his people and his kingdom are safe and secure.
Doug McMasters: No, this king gives himself up to be the good news, to be condemned and crucified.
Doug McMasters: This king, rather than launching a counterattack, this king surrenders.
Doug McMasters: This king, rather than killing his enemies, is anointed to be the one to die for those enemies.
Doug McMasters: This morning, as we look at this passage of scripture, we're going to discover a king who conquers his enemies and rules the world like no other king in this world has ever done.
Doug McMasters: And we'll learn that our acceptance and our participation in his kingdom means that we must accept him as king, and we must follow the pattern of him as king as we participate in his kingdom.
Doug McMasters: And so this morning I want us to look at four points.
Doug McMasters: And the first is this that this king goes on a scriptural mission.
Doug McMasters: This king goes on a scriptural mission.
Doug McMasters: This king, Jesus, follows a divine script that establishes the eternal kingdom of heaven on this troubled earth.
Doug McMasters: And when you read this passage and its surrounding context in the rest of the chapter, something significant out of the early pages of Matthew comes in with a flourish into this chapter.
Doug McMasters: Take a look with me at some things here.
Doug McMasters: Go to verse 24 for a second.
Doug McMasters: Matthew 26, verse 24.
Doug McMasters: The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him.
Doug McMasters: Just mark that phrase as it is written about him.
Doug McMasters: Then drop down to verse 31.
Doug McMasters: Then Jesus said to them, Tonight all of you will fall away because of me.
Doug McMasters: For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
Doug McMasters: Then go to verse 53 with me.
Doug McMasters: Do you think that I cannot call on my father, and he will provide me here and now with more than twelve legions of angels?
Doug McMasters: How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that says that it must happen this way?
Doug McMasters: Well, let's keep reading.
Doug McMasters: Verse 55.
Doug McMasters: At that time Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a criminal to capture me?
Doug McMasters: Every day I used to sit teaching in the temple and you didn't arrest me.
Doug McMasters: But all of this has happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: Something from the early pages of Matthew has come back into Matthew's writing.
Doug McMasters: What we have here at the end of Matthew is the way that Matthew started the gospel.
Doug McMasters: In the opening four chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, he says, seven different times.
Doug McMasters: All of this took place to fulfill what was said through the prophet.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 1 and verse 22, chapter 2 in verse 5, chapter 2 in verse 15, chapter 2 in verse 17, chapter 2 in verse 23, chapter 3 and verse 3, chapter 4 and verse 14, seven times in three and a half chapters.
Doug McMasters: There, Matthew talks about the fulfillment.
Doug McMasters: Here, Jesus talks about the fulfillment.
Doug McMasters: There, all of the passages in reference to the prophets were very specific.
Doug McMasters: You could go to a verse and see it there in the life of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Here, Jesus broadens it all.
Doug McMasters: The prophets.
Doug McMasters: It's as if Jesus is saying, take what all the prophets have written, converge together all the things that they've been saying, and you're going to find in this me and what's happening to me in this final week of my life and my ministry.
Doug McMasters: What Jesus said in Matthew 5 and verse 17.
Doug McMasters: He said, Don't think I've come to abolish the law and the prophets.
Doug McMasters: I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Doug McMasters: He is now acting out.
Doug McMasters: Later, Paul would look back on the life of Jesus, and he said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 1, he said, All the promises of God find their yes and their amen in Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And here Jesus is saying exactly the same thing.
Doug McMasters: All the promises of God find their yes and amen in him.
Doug McMasters: All of them?
Doug McMasters: Is Jesus the Son of Man of Daniel 7?
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: Is Jesus the new covenant that Jeremiah proclaimed?
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: Is Jesus the suffering servant of Isaiah?
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: Is Jesus the forsaken and mocked king of Psalm 22?
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: Yes, he is.
Doug McMasters: And so we see this king resolved to go on a scriptural mission, to go to the cross because he knows it's the will of God.
Doug McMasters: He knows it's the will of God because he knows the scriptures.
Doug McMasters: The Bible speaks of him, the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: It speaks of his suffering.
Doug McMasters: It speaks of his resurrection.
Doug McMasters: It speaks of his exaltation.
Doug McMasters: It speaks of him as the central focus of God's redemptive plan.
Doug McMasters: So when we read the Hebrew Bible, Jesus is telling us that we should be seeing the Messiah there.
Doug McMasters: We should see him in the story of Scripture.
Doug McMasters: You see, Jesus roots his whole life and ministry and all of that, in all of the prophets, in all the priests, in all the kings, saints, and sinners that we find in Scripture.
Doug McMasters: Scott McKnight said this: the story of Jesus Christ isn't a story that just pops out of nowhere, like the Book of Mormon.
Doug McMasters: It's not some timeless set of ideas as if like Plato's philosophical writings.
Doug McMasters: No, the story of Jesus is locked into one people, one history, one scripture.
Doug McMasters: And the life of Jesus can only make sense as it follows and completes the story of the people of Israel.
Doug McMasters: Here's our king, Jesus, on a scriptural mission, saying that his mission is fulfillment of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: So how can we share the gospel of this king, the good news that he saves, if we don't know the Hebrew Bible?
Doug McMasters: Remember what Paul said.
Doug McMasters: I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and which you stand and by which you're being saved.
Doug McMasters: What is it, Paul?
Doug McMasters: For I delivered to you, first of all, as of first importance, what I also received.
Doug McMasters: That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Doug McMasters: What Paul is emphasizing is what Jesus is saying.
Doug McMasters: Without the Old Testament, there's no understanding of Jesus.
Doug McMasters: With no understanding of Jesus, there's no understanding of the good news.
Doug McMasters: Without the understanding of the good news, there is no hope for us or for anyone else.
Doug McMasters: What is this good news that we herald?
Doug McMasters: Exactly what the people of Israel in the scriptures were pointing toward, to this Messiah who would come.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is this saving story of Israel, lived out by the true Israel, who was obedient to the Father, and yet who was dead and buried on the behalf of others, so that in his exaltation he might bring his people with him into an everlasting kingdom.
Doug McMasters: This is a scriptural mission that Jesus is on.
Doug McMasters: But let's look at how it takes shape.
Doug McMasters: The second thing we see is it's a submissive mission.
Doug McMasters: Last week, Kevin took us through the passage that detailed Christ's struggles with his impending death and taking on the judgment of sinners on his sinless self.
Doug McMasters: We call it Gethsemane.
Doug McMasters: Matthew, along with the other synoptic gospels, describe this period of time where Jesus affirms his complete commitment to God and yet also struggles with the horror of what it means to die the death of crucifixion.
Doug McMasters: In one of those telling verses, Matthew shows us that agonizing obedience as he submits himself to the will of the Father.
Doug McMasters: Verse 39.
Doug McMasters: Going a little farther, he fell face down and prayed, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
Doug McMasters: Yet not as I will, but as you will.
Doug McMasters: He knew that was coming.
Doug McMasters: Yet it pleased the Lord to crush him severely and to make him a guilt offering.
Doug McMasters: Jesus knew that was coming.
Doug McMasters: And in the Garden of Gethsemane, we listen to Jesus' genuine anguish, and yet we also feel the strength of his obedience as he conforms his life in submission to the will of the Father.
Doug McMasters: Now, John's gospel doesn't record Gethsemane like Matthew and Mark and Luke do.
Doug McMasters: But he does show us Jesus' submission to God's plan in John 12.
Doug McMasters: He said, The hour is come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Doug McMasters: And truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself.
Doug McMasters: But if it dies it produces much fruit.
Doug McMasters: The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Doug McMasters: If anyone serves me, he must follow me.
Doug McMasters: Where I am there my servant will also be.
Doug McMasters: If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
Doug McMasters: And then he says this, now my soul is troubled.
SPEAKER_00: What should I say?
SPEAKER_00: Father, save me from this hour.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That is why I came to this hour.
Doug McMasters: To fall to the ground and die.
Doug McMasters: It's this purpose, this submission to the plan of God that we see here in this passage of Scripture.
Doug McMasters: And so when we read what we're the passage that we're in, when Jesus speaks to Peter, he says, Peter, put away your sword.
Doug McMasters: Put your sword away, Peter.
Doug McMasters: Do you think I can't call on my father and here and now?
Doug McMasters: Have him send me legions, twelve legions of angels.
Doug McMasters: Jesus here talks about the confidence of his person, but he also talks about his willingness not to be using the prerogatives of that position.
Doug McMasters: This is why we read Philippians 2 this morning.
Doug McMasters: You see, a legion was, well, close to six thousand men.
Doug McMasters: Jesus was saying he could have called easily 70 plus thousand angels.
Doug McMasters: In the Old Testament, one of them killed over a hundred thousand men.
Doug McMasters: I think that small band that was behind Judas probably wasn't going to be much of a fight for them.
Doug McMasters: And for a moment, Peter and his fellow companions are ready to take up arms.
Doug McMasters: Luke records it.
Doug McMasters: Luke 22, when those around him saw what was going to happen, they asked, Lord, should we strike with the sword?
Doug McMasters: And Peter, of course, didn't wait for an answer.
Doug McMasters: He's just slices off part of an ear.
Doug McMasters: Impetuous Peter, ready to jump in before an answer is even given, Peter.
Doug McMasters: But Jesus responds, No more of this.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Why does he tell Peter put his sword back?
Doug McMasters: How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that says it can happen?
Doug McMasters: It has to happen this way.
Doug McMasters: As he submits himself.
Doug McMasters: This is a scriptural mission that Jesus submits himself to.
Doug McMasters: And he tells Peter, all those who live by the sword, well, they die by the sword.
Doug McMasters: What is Jesus saying here?
Doug McMasters: The way of the world is to assert its will.
Doug McMasters: The way of the world is to assert its will on others by way of force and power and violence necessarily.
Doug McMasters: And the way of the world is to retaliate violence with violence.
Doug McMasters: And the consequences of that is you end up losing with the same weapons that were waged against you and by you.
Doug McMasters: What is Jesus saying here?
Doug McMasters: He's saying his kingdom is a submissive kingdom.
Doug McMasters: He's saying that he and his people do not fight with the weapons of the world and their warfare.
Doug McMasters: They do not fight with a spirit of vengeance or revenge.
Doug McMasters: Spurgeon put it this way: He said, A godly man's hand is never more out of place when it's on the sword hilt.
Doug McMasters: He said, Yet there's always a tendency, even among Christians, to draw the sword from its scabbard.
Doug McMasters: And here Jesus is rejecting the notion that God's will is going to be advanced or imposed upon others by way of violent means.
Doug McMasters: Our allegiance is to this king, this king who goes on a scriptural mission, this king who submissively gives himself to that mission.
Doug McMasters: And he's calling us to a submissive mission by following him, by following the goals of the kingdom of God.
Doug McMasters: And this is why the Apostle Paul said, we don't wage war with the weaponry of this world.
Doug McMasters: But our weapons of righteousness are mighty, powerful from God for the pulling down of strongholds.
Doug McMasters: What are those weapons of righteousness?
Doug McMasters: Love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and meekness and kindness and self-control.
Doug McMasters: Those are the weapons of warfare.
Doug McMasters: My missions professor was a missionary in Pakistan, and he was watching a religious ceremony in which men would cut themselves with blades, knives and razors, whips, and they would go into this pool of dank green water and come out of it without blood on them.
Doug McMasters: And they walked over to him and said, Can your God do this?
Doug McMasters: And he said, My God can do something far greater.
Doug McMasters: My God can change a hard man's heart into a soft one.
Doug McMasters: My God can take a hateful man and make him loving.
Doug McMasters: My God can make a disturbed soul peaceful.
Doug McMasters: Can you get that out of the water?
Doug McMasters: Jesus has come to carry out God's plan of redemption in Scripture.
Doug McMasters: And he's come to do it in a submissive way.
Doug McMasters: Unless we think it's only for him.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what Peter, remember?
Doug McMasters: Peter, the funk, Peter.
Doug McMasters: Submit to every human authority because of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Whether to the emperor's supreme authority or to governors as those sent out by him to punish the to do what is evil and praise those who do what is good.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: For it is God's will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by cutting off their ear.
Doug McMasters: No, by doing good.
Doug McMasters: Submit as free people.
Doug McMasters: Not using your freedom as a cover up for evil as God's slaves.
Doug McMasters: Honor everyone.
Doug McMasters: I honor everyone.
Doug McMasters: Love the brothers and sisters, fear God, honor the emperor.
Doug McMasters: For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.
Doug McMasters: He did not commit sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.
Doug McMasters: And when he was insulted, he did not insult in return.
Doug McMasters: When he suffered, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
Doug McMasters: Submission.
Doug McMasters: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live to righteousness.
Doug McMasters: By his wounds you have been healed.
Doug McMasters: You were like sheep going astray, but now you've returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls, who said, Arrest me.
Doug McMasters: What do we see in this passage?
Doug McMasters: We see King Jesus on a mission, a scriptural mission, a submissive mission, a sincere mission.
Doug McMasters: And that's our third point.
Doug McMasters: While Jesus is in the garden here, we witness the return of Judas.
Doug McMasters: Verse 47, take a look at that with me.
Doug McMasters: While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, suddenly arrived.
Doug McMasters: He's come to execute the plan that he's made with the religious leaders of the day in order to gain temporary possession of the blood money that he had negotiated.
Doug McMasters: He secures a band of soldiers from the chief priests and the Pharisees.
Doug McMasters: He leads them to where Jesus is alone, away from all the crowds, and he kisses Jesus in order to identify him for the soldiers.
Doug McMasters: This Judas.
Doug McMasters: Who is this Judas?
Doug McMasters: Well, he was the treasurer of the apostolic band.
Doug McMasters: We have to assume that he had some positive characteristics about his life, right?
Doug McMasters: It's not a job you give to just anybody.
Doug McMasters: Because when Jesus said in the upper room, one of you is going to betray me, they all didn't go, well, hey, we know who that is.
Doug McMasters: They asked about themselves.
Doug McMasters: So Judas's reputation must have seemed dedicated.
Doug McMasters: It might have even seemed sincere, but the reality was it was all a sham.
Doug McMasters: Every bit of it.
Doug McMasters: According to John, Judas' objection to Mary's anointing of Jesus with costly ointment was not because he was concerned about the poor, but because of his greed.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because we find in John 12 and verse 6 that he was dipping his hand into the money bag.
Doug McMasters: He was taking for his own personal profit the treasury funds.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus indicates in other places that Judas never really did believe in him, but only appeared to be as if he did.
Doug McMasters: And so to the sin of greed and covetousness, there's also the sin of deceit and hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: Jesus had offered him a relationship.
Doug McMasters: Jesus had given him an intimate life next to him.
Doug McMasters: Jesus had pronounced a role for him.
Doug McMasters: But Jesus was abused by Judas because Judas manipulated that relationship and manipulated that position for his own purposes.
Doug McMasters: And now in the ultimate display of hypocrisy, verse 47.
Doug McMasters: He arrives and what does he do?
Doug McMasters: Greetings, Rabbi.
Doug McMasters: Verse 49.
Doug McMasters: And kisses him.
Doug McMasters: Luke records Jesus asking him a question.
SPEAKER_00: Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?
SPEAKER_00: There's not one record of any of the other apostles kissing Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Here's the one place where that sign of acceptance and love and friendship is offered in hypocrisy.
Doug McMasters: The CSB says, Why have you come?
Doug McMasters: NIV puts it a little different.
Doug McMasters: Do what you've come for.
Doug McMasters: There's a question about which way this phrase should be translated.
Doug McMasters: Both ways have equal import, I think.
Doug McMasters: It's hard to know exactly which way to go with it.
Doug McMasters: Why have you come echoes those words in the Garden of Eden, here in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Doug McMasters: Adam, Adam, where are you?
Doug McMasters: Judas, where are you?
Doug McMasters: Why have you come here?
Doug McMasters: But also this do what you came for means Jesus' submission to God's directions through the Passion Week.
Doug McMasters: And Judas is a part of that, violating this most sacred, privileged relationship with the Messiah, scorning Christ, taking advantage of his love and his friendship, manipulating his friends, manipulating even his enemies to advance his own goals.
Doug McMasters: Judas was never really Christ's.
Doug McMasters: He fell away from his apostleship and never, never returned.
Doug McMasters: He's called the son of perdition.
Doug McMasters: He's lost.
Doug McMasters: The highest accolade he could give to Christ was rabbi, never Lord.
Doug McMasters: He lives here on the stage of Scripture as a warning to us of uncommitted followers of Jesus who share company with Christ and his people, but don't share in the spirit of Christ or of his kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Judas leaves the gospel story a little bit later, a doomed and damned man because of the hardness of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something else here.
SPEAKER_00: There's Jesus.
Doug McMasters: He submitted himself to that kiss.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because I think when he called Judas friend, he meant it.
Doug McMasters: He could have recoiled and stepped back, but he didn't.
Doug McMasters: And when he is arrested, he submits himself to that.
Doug McMasters: He has something to say about it, but he submits himself and he says to these men who do this, have you come out to me with swords and clubs as if I were a criminal to capture me?
Doug McMasters: Every day I used to sit teaching in the temple and you didn't arrest me.
Doug McMasters: Why have you come this way?
Doug McMasters: Why have you come in the middle of the night?
Doug McMasters: Why have you come to this solitary spot?
Doug McMasters: Why have you come with clubs and swords?
Doug McMasters: Why have you come this way when you could have easily arrested me in the temple?
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because they were not sincere men.
Doug McMasters: And why does Jesus make this point?
Doug McMasters: Because he was sincere.
Doug McMasters: He was who he was in the temple.
Doug McMasters: He is who he is in the garden.
Doug McMasters: He is sincere all the way through.
Doug McMasters: He hasn't changed a bit.
Doug McMasters: He wasn't being something in his public teaching and doing something different in a closet.
Doug McMasters: There was complete transparency about him.
Doug McMasters: What he was in public is what he was in private.
Doug McMasters: He wasn't putting on a public face, all the while plotting something different.
Doug McMasters: There were no plans of subversion underneath everything he was saying.
Doug McMasters: The religious leaders couldn't counter his teaching, so they drum up an idea that he's actually about being subversive.
Doug McMasters: He's head to this temple, destroy it in three days.
Doug McMasters: Jesus says, Do you really think I'm leading a rebellion?
SPEAKER_00: Of course they didn't.
SPEAKER_00: They just wanted him gone.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 50, it says they take a hold of him.
Doug McMasters: The idiom there is translated in other versions.
Doug McMasters: They laid hands on Jesus and seized him.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: Throughout the Gospels, Jesus lays hands on people to heal them.
Doug McMasters: But here he allows these men to lay their hands on him to kill them.
Doug McMasters: Why would the one who laid hands on people to heal them allow sinful hands to lay hands, their those hands on him so he could heal them in a different way?
Doug McMasters: He goes into the hands of sinners so that he could open up wide his hands to save.
Doug McMasters: This is Jesus.
Doug McMasters: He's on a scriptural mission, he's on a submissive mission, he's on a sincere mission.
Doug McMasters: And tragically, for every single one of us, it is a solitary mission.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 56.
Doug McMasters: All this happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away.
Doug McMasters: These trembling disciples had looked to Jesus for strength and leadership, but now he's arrested and they've got nowhere to go.
Doug McMasters: Jesus just a little bit earlier in the evening had promised a comforter who would come and be with them.
Doug McMasters: Where's their clinging to the hope of that anywhere?
Doug McMasters: All of them flee.
Doug McMasters: And Peter, you know, whack, Peter runs.
SPEAKER_00: And he hides.
SPEAKER_00: He cowers at the questions of a little girl.
SPEAKER_00: Even after the resurrection, these men are in an upper room hiding for fear of their lives.
Doug McMasters: These are the men that have been called by Christ to be his ambassadors in the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: But they don't understand Jesus and they don't understand the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Not yet.
Doug McMasters: They don't understand that he's come to give himself up to death to save a lost and dying world.
Doug McMasters: But as Jesus is led away to that death, all of their hope dies.
Doug McMasters: They haven't understood it yet.
Doug McMasters: Jesus has refused to retaliate with force.
Doug McMasters: He's refused the sword, and he's made his disciples vulnerable.
Doug McMasters: After he's arrested, they run away.
Doug McMasters: What Jesus had been proclaiming to them should have caused them to have some sense of confidence and hope.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps even to stand firm in the face of this arrest.
Doug McMasters: But they don't.
Doug McMasters: And once again, in Jesus' greatest time of personal need, when he needs support the most, his closest followers desert him.
SPEAKER_00: And he faces the cross alone.
SPEAKER_00: Like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement, Jesus goes off to his destiny alone.
SPEAKER_00: That solitude of Gethsemane gets all the more quiet.
Doug McMasters: Alone.
Doug McMasters: When we read the Gospel of Matthew, we run into all kinds of different characters.
Doug McMasters: Judas, Peter, later we'll read about Pilate, Caiaphas, crowds demanding the blood of Christ, the rest of the disciples.
Doug McMasters: All of them, Matthew ushers onto the stage before us in order to show us a contrast and comparison to Jesus.
Doug McMasters: All of them fail the responsibilities that are put before them in their life.
Doug McMasters: All of their motives for service are just human-derived motivations to achieve success, and every one of them fail.
Doug McMasters: But there's one solitary life who maintains that scriptural, divine mission, Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And though his ultimate end seems to be one of failure here, it's not.
Doug McMasters: It's success.
Doug McMasters: You see, Jesus is not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
Doug McMasters: His purpose to coming to this earth was to be that lone savior.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.
Doug McMasters: He was like some someone people turned away from.
Doug McMasters: He was despised, and we didn't value him.
Doug McMasters: John writes that in John 1.
Doug McMasters: He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.
Doug McMasters: Zechariah 13, smite the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter.
Doug McMasters: They did.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Why this one man?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 40 59.
Doug McMasters: Justice is turned back, and righteousness is standing afar off.
Doug McMasters: Truth is stumbled in the public square, and honesty cannot enter.
Doug McMasters: Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil is plundered.
Doug McMasters: The Lord saw that there was no justice, and he was offended.
Doug McMasters: He saw that there was no man.
Doug McMasters: He was amazed there was no one interceding.
Doug McMasters: Why is Jesus alone here?
Doug McMasters: Because Isaiah 59 says this.
Doug McMasters: So his own arm brought salvation, and his own righteousness supported him.
Doug McMasters: He put on righteousness as body armor and a helmet of salvation on his head, and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
Doug McMasters: This is Jesus alone, the one obedient man, the one obedient Israel alone.
Doug McMasters: No one next to him to receive the credit.
Doug McMasters: No one saying, I did part of it to get any of the credit.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 63.
Doug McMasters: I looked and there was no one to help.
Doug McMasters: And I was amazed that no one assisted.
Doug McMasters: So my arm accomplished victory for me.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 41, when I looked, there was no one, there was no counselor among them.
Doug McMasters: When I asked them, they had nothing to say.
Doug McMasters: God speaks from his heavenly throne to the universe and says, Can any of you save yourselves?
unknown: No.
Doug McMasters: No, we can't.
Doug McMasters: More likely, no, we won't.
Doug McMasters: Ezekiel 22.
Doug McMasters: Her priests do violence to my instruction and profane my holy things.
Doug McMasters: Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, destroying lives.
Doug McMasters: Her prophets plaster for them with whitewash by seeing false visions and lying divinations.
Doug McMasters: The people have practiced extortion and committed robbery, they've oppressed the poor and needy.
Doug McMasters: I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one except for Jesus, so that we would not be destroyed.
Doug McMasters: John took up this scene in heaven and wrote it for us.
Doug McMasters: In Revelation 5, I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?
Doug McMasters: But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or even to look in it.
Doug McMasters: I wept and I wept because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or even look in it.
Doug McMasters: And then one of the elders said to me, Do not weep, do not weep.
Doug McMasters: Look, the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, is conquered so that he is able to open the scroll in its seven seals.
Doug McMasters: Jesus alone, a solitary mission, a solitary mission.
Doug McMasters: What is this passage teaching us?
Doug McMasters: This Jesus goes on a scriptural mission, this Jesus who goes on a submissive mission, this Jesus who in sincerity progresses through this mission, this Jesus who goes alone.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because this is what the prophets have spoken about.
Doug McMasters: Because there was only one who could save, and that was God Himself.
Doug McMasters: And here He is, fulfilling His own word, submitting to His own divine plan, sincerely bringing life to sinners, and can speak.
Doug McMasters: To anyone as guilty as Judas, friend, friend.
SPEAKER_00: And he did it alone.
Doug McMasters: The first point here is accept this Savior who brings the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Accept him.
Doug McMasters: Like all the other characters that we've already met and will meet throughout this passion week.
Doug McMasters: We, just like them, in our understanding, in our allegiance, in our commitment, in our ability, were not consistent or constant at all.
Doug McMasters: Not a one of us.
Doug McMasters: Every one of us failed the test of faithfulness.
Doug McMasters: And it's more than a weakness of ability, it's a moral stubbornness.
Doug McMasters: We're too self-absorbed.
Doug McMasters: We're too willing to save ourselves.
Doug McMasters: We're too fixed on our own comfort.
Doug McMasters: We're too captured by offered pleasures.
Doug McMasters: We're too swayed by other people's opinions.
Doug McMasters: We're too dulled to the determinations of God who is holy and thus wholly different than we are.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the good news.
SPEAKER_00: There's a savior who's come to save us.
Doug McMasters: To look every single Judas one of us in the eye and say, friend.
SPEAKER_00: Say, friend.
Doug McMasters: A Savior who's denied himself of all the comforts, denied himself the prerogatives of power and position, who's denied himself from all the temptations to satiate even the cravings of his body.
Doug McMasters: I thirst, who set aside the invitation to eat after several days of fasting, who resisted the temptations to question God's goodness or to presume upon God's protection.
Doug McMasters: He set his face toward Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: To save us.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: When none of us could stand, when there was no one who could be found, there was one who came to seek and to save.
Doug McMasters: That's Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Embrace him.
Doug McMasters: Embrace the Savior.
Doug McMasters: And if you've already embraced the Savior, follow this puzzling king.
Doug McMasters: Follow this one who does what no other king has ever done.
Doug McMasters: This one who conquers through death.
Doug McMasters: This one who is victorious through submission.
Doug McMasters: Embrace the Savior and His sufferings and his submission and even his solitary kingdom.
Doug McMasters: As the writer of Hebrews said, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Doug McMasters: Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Doug McMasters: Engage this kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Engage its scriptural mandates, engage its submissive call, engage its drive to sincerity, engage it even when you're alone.
Doug McMasters: Peter said, I'll never deny you.
Doug McMasters: But he did.
Doug McMasters: And he had to learn that discipleship was going to mean something.
Doug McMasters: It was going to mean a complete reordering of who he was, as he lost confidence in himself and embraced the Savior.
Doug McMasters: And in embracing the Savior, he could throw away the sword and take up the weapon of submission.
Doug McMasters: And he says this in 1 Peter 4 Since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding.
Doug McMasters: Because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin, in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer to human desires, but for God's will.
Doug McMasters: Peter learns a big lesson.
Doug McMasters: And so he says in chapter 5 these words, and we'll finish with this.
Doug McMasters: Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up.
Doug McMasters: Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
Doug McMasters: Be self-controlled and alert.
Doug McMasters: Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Doug McMasters: Resist him, not with a sword, but standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
Doug McMasters: And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you've suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: To him be the power forever and ever.
Doug McMasters: Amen.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, what an intriguing, puzzling world-upturning passage we've just looked at.
Doug McMasters: Because we have a record here of a king like no other who accomplishes in what seems to be his utter defeat the victory for eternity.
Doug McMasters: Father, we pray that all of us might understand this better.
Doug McMasters: That all of us might understand Christ better.
Doug McMasters: That all of us here would not leave this place without having a relationship with this King Jesus.
Doug McMasters: That we would cast all of our soul upon him because he's the only one that has stood up when the rest of us all ran away.
Doug McMasters: And I pray, Father, that we as your people might not be caught by the wafting winds of temptation to bear the sword with vengeance or retaliation like the world does.
Doug McMasters: That we would not run away from the rich reward of Christ by grabbing a dole and bloodied knife of revenge.
Doug McMasters: I pray, Father, that we would recognize that we're called to walk in the footsteps of our Savior, and that his kingdom is advanced in ways that no one can understand or appreciate.
Doug McMasters: It is by the foolishness of preaching that people are saved.
Doug McMasters: It is in the weak things that the powerful are overthrown.
Doug McMasters: It's in the foolish things where the wise are confounded.
Doug McMasters: Pray, Father, that we might continue as your people to embrace that, to embrace our Savior, to embrace his kingdom, and to embrace the weapons of warfare that are not carnal.
Doug McMasters: We ask this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.